The Loss of the Stargazer
by poohba
Summary: A year after Jack Crusher's death, the Stargazer goes missing - and Beverly wonders if she's going to lose Jean-Luc too. This is for the people who wanted a sequel to my story, "Trio."
1. Prologue

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've had this story in the back of my mind for a couple of weeks, now. But when I woke up this morning and heard the news about the Space Shuttle Columbia, I knew I had to take the time to write it. It's dedicated to the Columbia astronauts, their families, the people of NASA and all those around the world affected by this tragedy. I hope my story helps and doesn't hurt.

PROLOGUE

The attacking ship had never identified itself. It had ignored all of _Stargazer's_ hails. It had just appeared there, suddenly, looming in front of the starship.

The captain had never seen a vessel of its type before. Its deck plates were a brownish-golden hue, and it somewhat resembled a croissant roll. In spite of himself, the captain's mouth turned up at that.

And then, two quick bursts of energy came from it. At point-blank range the weapons disabled the _Stargazer's_ shields completely. 

The bridge burst into flames. The captain could barely see his navigator and operations officer over the smoke. The sickening smell of burning metal and flesh hung in the air. He turned his head to see where his first officer had moved off to. Lieutenant Mahajerin was sprawled out beside his chair. Her delicate neck was twisted at an odd angle.

The captain swallowed hard. It had barely been a year since his former first officer had… But he couldn't think about that right now. The lives of everyone else on board depended on his concentration in the here and now.

He called out an order to the ensigns up front. They answered back over the roar of the fires. But, at least they were alive. The ship still had weapons' control.

The unidentified ship had fallen back. 

The captain didn't have any idea what they were waiting for. Why don't you finish us off it that's what you mean to do? he wanted to shout. But at the same time, his mind was racing. Nine million kilometers away…breathing room…what could the _Stargazer_ do to fend off another attack?

Suddenly, an idea came to him. He had no idea if it would work, of course. It all depended on the speed of the other ship's sensors… But… maybe…

He ordered the _Stargazer_ into warp, and then, in effect, slammed on the brakes right in front of the other ship. 

If their sensors only had light-speed capabilities, the other ship would not realize the _Stargazer _had gone to warp. It would take 30 seconds for the light to reach their ship. And in the meantime, the _Stargazer _was hanging off their bow, and they were seeing two images of her.

"Fire!" the captain ordered.

The ruse had worked. The other ship didn't stand a chance with the confusion. It exploded in a blaze of light, rocking the already damaged _Stargazer._

With the immediate danger gone, the captain turned his attention back to the state of his own ship. The fires seemed only to get larger and brighter. Those still alive on the bridge were coughing and sputtering.

He called to sickbay and engineering for reports and heard no reply. Alarms started to sound. They were losing life support. It seemed the other ship might be getting the last laugh after all.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard adjusted his uniform and let his mind wander past the chaos of the present. He thought of Jack Crusher, and then a face popped unbidden before his eyes. 

In what Picard took to be the last moments of his life, he saw a redheaded woman with intense blue eyes… the woman he loved.


	2. The Loss

Beverly Crusher ran the bone knitter across the sternum of Commander Lackey, closing his chest cavity. Her Attending, Dr. Dalen Quaice, nodded, approvingly. Already in the fourth year of her residency, Crusher knew he thought her one of his most promising surgeons.

The procedure had been a fairly unusual one, replacing Lackey's damaged heart with an artificial one. When she'd seen her schedule for the day, it had made her briefly think of Jean-Luc. He was the only person she knew with an artificial heart. But, then she'd put the thought out of her mind and followed Quaice into surgery.

Now, the procedure was all but finished, and Jean-Luc was drifting back into her thoughts once more.

"Beverly?" Quaice asked, noticing her distraction.

She tossed her head and took a deep breath. "I'm fine."

"If you're feeling queasy, or need to step out, I can finish up."

"No, no… really, I'm fine." Crusher smiled brightly. A fake smile, but it seemed to satisfy her superior.

The rest of Lackey's surgery went without incident, and when he was safely in recovery, Crusher tore the hood off her red surgical uniform and loosened her collar.

"You seem like you need a break," Quaice said to her.

"Oh no, sir. I'm fine."

The grandfatherly old surgeon patted her on the shoulder. "Take the rest of the day off. Surprise that young son of yours by being home before he is."

Crusher smiled… a real one, this time. "Thank you sir. I don't know what's come over me today. I can't seem to concentrate."

Quaice squeezed his eyes together, suspiciously. "You haven't met someone have you? You've got all the symptoms."

"Oh no, sir. With Wesley and work, who has time for that sort of thing? Besides, it's only been 14 months. I don't really feel ready to…" The end of her sentence hung in the air for a moment.

Quaice nodded again. "It takes time. But someday, it'll happen when you're least expecting it." He turned and walked down the corridor to his office.

Crusher sighed. She wasn't sure she wanted someone to replace Jack… no matter how much everyone else in her life tried to tell her to "move on." 

She and Wesley were still grieving for their husband and father. Certainly, it took longer than 14 months to even begin to think about seeing someone else. The idea of being with someone other than Jack still made her shudder.

But then, there was Jean-Luc… She shook that thought off quickly as she went to the locker room to change back into her normal duty uniform.

Her quarters were dark when she entered, as was to be expected. But it made her notice a red light flashing on the comm-panel. An incoming message. She wasn't sure she wanted to talk to anyone right then, but when she looked at the panel again, she noticed the transmission was from the _U.S.S. Horatio_.

Walker Keel!

Without even calling for lights, she positioned herself in front of the viewscreen. Keel's well-weathered face appeared. She noticed his temples had gotten even grayer since the last time she had seen him.

"Walker," she exclaimed. "This is a surprise."

"Good to see you, Beverly," he said gruffly… but then, when wasn't Walker gruff? "How's the boy?"

Crusher smiled brightly. "Wesley's fine. He's still into programming and engineering and everything else having to do with running a starship."

Keel nodded, as if he hadn't even heard what she said. Crusher began to realize he wasn't just paying a social call. "Walker, what's wrong."

The captain of the _Horatio _sighed. "Beverly, I don't know how to tell you this, but I thought you needed to know… Something's gone wrong with the _Stargazer_."

All the hairs on Crusher's neck seemed to stand on end. A freezing sensation went through her brain. Suddenly, one of the overstuffed chairs in the room seemed to rise up and meet her, although she realized, it was actually she who had fallen into it.

Walker was still talking. "Now, we don't know what's going on," he said. "She's been exploring the Maxia Zeta system and didn't report in at her normal time yesterday… Starfleet can't reach her… but that doesn't mean necessarily anything's happened… Maybe it's just their communications are down… Starfleet's investigating…"

"It sounds like you're trying to convince yourself, Walker."

He stopped for a moment, then said. "Beverly, he's not dead."

She had pulled her knees up onto the chair and was hugging them close to herself. "You could be right," she said, as if she was considering the idea.

"Dammit Beverly, are you all right?"

She turned her blue eyes back to the viewscreen. "Thank you for letting me know. I know what a friend you were to Jack and Jean-Luc. It's easier to hear it coming from you."

"Beverly!" Keel had turned the full-force of his attention to her. She could feel him, reaching out over the light years separating their positions. "Jean-Luc's not dead. He's going to come out of this somehow. I know it looks dark right now… but…"

"There's hope," she said. And she began to believe it.

She sat in the darkness, thinking, after Keel ended the transmission. She thought about the evening Walker Keel had introduced her to handsome Lieutenant Jack Crusher. How she'd known there was something special about him from the moment he had reached out to shake her hand. 

And then, the next night, she'd been introduced to Jean-Luc Picard. He was older than Jack, more Walker's age. But she recognized his kindness, his gentle spirit, right away. She'd sometimes wondered if it had been him, instead of Jack, that she had met first, what would have happened.

But it had been Jack she married. Jack, who was the father of her son. It was Jack who'd died during that away mission barely a year ago. 

And Jean-Luc had taken her to view the body when he'd brought it back to Starbase. He'd let her sob against him, wetting his uniform front. He'd held her just the way she needed to be held, that day.

And then he'd disappeared back to the _Stargazer_… his wife… as Jack sometimes jokingly had called the ship. 

She hadn't even seen him at the funeral. Walker and Mindy Keel had been there. They told her Jean-Luc had been too, but in the back, trying to avoid the spotlight. Jean-Luc Picard was not one to wear his heart on his sleeve, but when he couldn't help it, he made sure as few people as possible saw.

She hadn't had a word from him since. All she knew about him from the past 14 months came from the Keels. 

Beverly had been hurt by that. She had considered Jean-Luc a close family friend… a sort-of surrogate father for Wesley. And he had shut the Crushers out of his life completely.

But she knew he was hurting too. Jack Crusher had been not only his first officer, but his best friend. She'd often heard him say Jack was the brother to him that Robert Picard never had been.

And where was he now?

She walked down the hall to her bedroom and over to the window. There was brilliant sunshine on the surface of Delos IV. She couldn't see the stars at all, and she desperately wanted to. The planet's atmosphere was operating just to taunt her, today.

Somewhere, up there, thousands upon thousands of light years away, something had happened to the _Stargazer_. Had they come under attack? Had there been an accident in the warp core? Or was it simply a passing nebula, blocking transmissions? 

That last thought didn't seem very plausible to her. Surely, by now, they would have passed the nebula.

But Starfleet did lose contact with its ships. She had been through the Academy training. She knew that. Space was infinite, and there were an infinite number of things to interfere with normal operations on a starship. Ninety-nine percent of the time, nothing was seriously the matter.

It was the other one percent of the time that weighed on her mind, now. She ran her Academy training simulations through her brain. On a Constellation-Class ship, the nearest escape route from the bridge would be… What was its standard complement of escape pods… shuttlecraft…? She racked her brain for the answers.

She heard the front door whisk open and young bundle of energy, just released from school, run through the door. "Lights," she heard her son tell the computer.

"Wesley?" she called.

"Mom?" The slender and tall six-year-old frame of Wesley Crusher appeared in the doorway to the room. "You're home early."

"I know. Dr. Quaice said I could take the afternoon off."

"Wow… could we maybe reserve one of the holodecks and do something fun?" the boy asked.

Crusher's heart ached. She debated how much to tell him, or even to tell him at all. If it wound up being nothing, telling him now would just frighten him. "No, dear."

Wesley's face fell. "Aw. Well, Timothy's invited me over to his quarters this afternoon anyway. Can I go?"

She nodded. She would tell him later… if she needed to.

She spent the rest of the evening trying to read, but the words on the padd just jumbled together. She found she wasn't accomplishing much. When Timothy's mother called and asked if it was all right for Wesley to spend the night, she found herself agreeing, even though he had school the next day.

Timothy's mother's eyes had been kind. "I heard about the _Stargazer_," she whispered, so the boys wouldn't hear. "If there's anything I can do…"

Beverly had thanked her, and then cut the transmission. Her dark quarters seemed large and empty at that moment. 

She touched the small table where they had all sat the last time they had been together. It had turned out to be one of Jack's last meals there. Now, it looked to be Jean-Luc's as well.

"I have to stop thinking like that," she hissed to herself. She moved to the bedroom, where she changed into a nightgown and began brushing her hair. She collapsed on the bed and had eight hours of a deep and dreamless sleep.

The next day, all the news nets had picked up the story. She turned one on as she got ready for work. The viewscreen showed an old photo of Picard… (he was considerably more bald than that now, Beverly thought to herself)… and the reporter was speculating on reasons for the _Stargazer's_ silence.

He was not mentioning anything she had not already thought of, and she didn't need to hear it again. She shut down the viewscreen.

"Mom?" Wesley came in to get ready for school. "Mom, everybody's talking about the _Stargaze_r, like something's the matter. What's wrong?"

Crusher smiled painfully at her son. It was time to tell the truth. "Nobody knows, sweetie. They haven't heard from the ship in awhile. That's why everybody's a little worried."

Wesley's face blanched. "You mean, something could have happened to Captain Picard?"

Crusher nodded. She couldn't shield that awful fact from her son. "That doesn't mean something _did_, you understand. We don't know."

Tears came to Wesley's eyes. She put her arms around him and they cried together. "I didn't mean for anything to happen," he sobbed.

"What?" Beverly drew back and asked.

Wesley wiped tears from his cheeks. "I didn't mean anything to happen," he repeated.

"Wesley, I don't understand…"

"I wondered why he came back from that mission and Dad didn't," the boy cried. "I wondered what it would have been like if he'd died and Dad came home… I was thinking about it yesterday… but I didn't want him to die too!"

Beverly hugged her son fiercely to her. "Wesley, you didn't do anything to cause this. We all have thoughts like that, but it doesn't make them come true."

Wesley's grip on her tightened.

"Now, it could just be a communications problem. We'll find out soon. But, in the meantime, we need to be brave. Do you think you can go to school?"

Wesley nodded.

"Good." Crusher sat back on her heels and studied her son. His maturity for his age never ceased to amaze her. "Dad would be proud of you, you know that?"

The first sign of one of Wesley's famous grins started on his face. She ruffled some of his hair, the way Jack used to do. "Well, you better get going so you're not late then," she smiled back.

The day of work dragged by. Beverly was glad she was with patients most of the day, because every time she walked past the staff lounge, she heard news reports coming from the viewscreen in the corner.

There was a taped message from Walker when she got home. "Hello Beverly," he said. "No real news yet. They're dispatching the _Melbourne _to the Maxia Zeta system to look for her. She's the closest ship, but even she's 10 days away from there." He shrugged. "I'll let you know when I hear more."

The next ten days were the longest in Beverly's life… or so it seemed at the time.   
Walker was in contact daily, but he had little information to give her. At least he and Dr. Quaice were her staunch allies through it. It was well known on the Starbase that she was the widow of the former first officer of the _Stargazer _and a friend of the missing captain. People she passed in the corridors gave her a wide berth, as if they didn't know how to treat her.

But, she didn't know how to talk to the ones, like Timothy's mother, that fawned over her, either.

The _Melbourne_ arrived in the Maxia Zeta system… and still, they heard nothing. She was still searching for _Stargazer_, Walker told her Starfleet was saying. Nobody had given up hope yet.

She would lie awake at night, writhing underneath the covers. If only she knew one way or the other, certainly knowing the worst couldn't be as bad as the waiting! And then, one night when she closed her eyes, Jean-Luc's face popped in front of her eyelids. She could see him as well as if he was standing in front of her. She'd forgotten what a strong patrician nose he had, with the strong jawline and tender hazel eyes.

Beverly's eyes flew open and she sat up in bed. She remembered Dr. Quaice telling her, "You've got all the symptoms." And for the first time she realized why.

She was in love with Jean-Luc! If he never came back, then he would never know!

That thought threw her into even more agony than she had been the last two weeks. 

She threw off the bedcovers. Trying to sleep was useless. There was too much going on in her mind to lie still. She checked the chronometer. She would have had to wake up in two hours for her next duty shift anyway.

Quietly, so she wouldn't wake Wesley, she stole out to the main room asked the replicator for a cup of hot tea. She held the hot mug it provided laced in her hands as she paced the room, trying to sort out her thoughts.

They could never be together, she thought. It would never work, with Jean-Luc being a Starship captain, and she with a young son. And what would Jack think if he could see her now? 

Somehow, she thought he would approve. What was it he had said to her, the night of their first date, when she hadn't yet met Jean-Luc? He had joked that he was glad to have gotten to her first… because he didn't want her deciding she liked Jean-Luc better.

She smiled at the memory. No, she didn't like Jean-Luc "better," just differently. She knew he was a part of her… a part no less important than Jack or Wesley. And she didn't think she could stand to lose another chunk of herself again.

An hour or so into her pacing, the message indicator lit up again. She glanced the red flashing light, wondering who it could possibly be. Walker never called this early. He knew it was the middle of the night on Delos IV. But she answered the hail, anyway.

It was Walker. He looked ten years younger than he had yesterday. He was actually smiling. "Turn on the news net," he said.

"Why?"

"Just do it." And then he was gone.

Beverly did turn on the viewscreen. The news net was showing photos of drifting spaceshuttles nearby the _Melbourne_. Then the view shifted to an admiral at a press conference.

"Starfleet is relieved to recover so many survivors from the Stargazer," she was saying. "We have all been worried the last few weeks, but we know 145 crewmembers are now safely aboard the _Melbourne_."

Beverly tried to remember what the crew compliment of the ship was. Not everyone had survived, she sadly figured. But what about Jean-Luc?

The view cut back to a reporter standing outside Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco, who said. "The _Stargazer's_ captain, 20-year veteran Jean-Luc Picard, spoke to us a couple of hours after being rescued."

A small cry escaped Beverly. He was alive. He was safe. She gulped as they showed Jean-Luc speaking to reporters. There were bags under his eyes, lines running through his skin, but she thought he was the most beautiful sight she had seen since Wesley had been placed in her arms the minute he was born.

"We knew we didn't stand a chance if we stayed on the ship," he was saying. "So, we took to the shuttlecraft. We knew if might take awhile to be rescued, but we didn't give up. There were too many people waiting back home for us." He looked into the camera, and it seemed like he could actually see down into her soul.

Wesley staggered out of his room, wiping sleep from his eyes. "Mom, is everything all right?" he asked.

"Yes Wesley," she answered. "Everything is fine. Everything's going to be okay."


End file.
